Abstract
I respond to six objections, raised by Selim Berker and Karl Schafer, against the theory offered in my Empiricism and Experience: (1) that the theory needs a problematic notion of subjective character of experience; (2) that the transition from the hypothetical to the categorical fails because of a logical difficulty; (3) that the constraints imposed on admissible views are too weak; (4) that the theory does not deserve the label ‘empiricism’; (5) that the motivations provided for the Reliability constraint are insufficient; and (6) that convergence is bound to fail since epistemic entitlements are permissions.
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Notes
This is just one of several ways of spelling out the idea of defeasibility.
Strictly speaking, only the relevant part of the view need be rational. Henceforth, I suppress this qualification.
The subjective character is thin in that external objects are not constituents of it: two experiences may be subjectively identical even though one of them is veridical and the other is a sheer hallucination.
We can think of the rich subjective character of an experience e as the value of the hypothetical given Γ e at the subject’s view v. If this is right, then I do not think that the thin subjective character is in general recoverable from the rich one.
By giving the defeasibility theorists the option that the irrationality of antecedent view defeats entitlement, Schafer blurs the distinction between two quite distinct types of theories. See (iii) in § 2—a rare unhelpful passage in an otherwise very helpful discussion.
This is so even if we assume that R is consistent with the subject’s beliefs and that the subject is fully aware of the implications.
Berker is right that the “wide-scope” reading considered in his fn. 20 will not do.
See E&E, p. 108, for an account of the view I am calling ‘solipsism’.
This kind of objection has been put to me by many friends and colleagues. It was first raised by Chris Hill long ago when in the course of a conversation I sketched to him the idea of the hypothetical given. It is raised by Ram Neta in “Empiricism about Experience” (2009). I respond to Neta in “Equivalence, Reliability, and Convergence” (2009). Some of the material from my response to Neta is included in what follows.
The other can be handled in a parallel way.
Berker, § 6. I have condensed and slightly reformulated Berker’s presentation of the view.
Berker offers a different but interesting objection, namely, that solipsism is not ruled out by the three constraints. In particular, Berker objects, solipsism is not ruled out by the rigidity constraint because experience can transform a solipsist view to a fundamentally non-equivalent one. A solipsist view that countenanced four types of sense-data (e.g., visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory) can be moved by a novel experience to one that countenances a new type of sense-datum (e.g., auditory).
In response I want to insist that the two solipsist views, before and after the novel experience, are fundamentally equivalent. The conceptions of the self and of the objects of experience remain the same in two views. In good views, in admissible views, the nature of the objects of experience ought to be up for empirical discovery. Solipsism, by its very definition, rigidly fixes the nature of the object of experience. (The same can be said of the nature of the self.)
Berker’s objection is helpful because it clarifies the notion of “fundamental equivalence” in play in the definition of “rigidity.”
Schafer, § 3. I have condensed and slightly reformulated Schafer’s presentation of the view.
I say this because Schafer defines normal minimal response to be the maximal proposition of a certain sort. Uniqueness and maximality suggest that the normal minimal response is the conjunction of judgments in the given relative to the normal background view.
I think the problem about rigidity will remain even if Schafer were to define a normal minimal response to be a maximal proposition of the particular sort indicated in his definition.
We have more hope of avoiding rigidity if we change the example and say that an experience, e, delivers not the negation of the long conjunction, but the totality of the negations of the conjuncts. So, if P is a proposition that e yields under the normal view, then e now yields not-P. This move may avoid the problem with rigidity, but it puts the coherence of the view in doubt. The normal response to a funny-shaped blotch on the wall may include both “that blotch is not triangular” and “that blotch is not rectangular.” Under the present proposal, the experience will yield a blatantly incoherent set of perceptual judgments, a set that includes both “that blotch is triangular” and “that blotch is rectangular.”
This issue is raised also by Valeriano Iranzo in “On the Epistemic Authority of Experience” (2009).
See E&E, Chap. 2 and pp. 158–160.
See E&E, pp. 82–83.
Only this argument in E&E appeals to the Reliability constraint, and even here I provide an alternative that bypasses the constraint. In the overall argument of E&E, then, Reliability plays a minimal role—and this is so by design.
It is true that if Reliability is accepted, as I think it should be, then a powerful argument becomes available for the positive theory offered in E&E. I recognized, however, that this argument is ineffective in a debate with, e.g., a Dogmatist. In this debate, Reliability is as much in question as is the positive theory of E&E; hence, appeals to Reliability do little work. The crucial issue in this debate is not Reliability but which account makes better sense of empirical rationality. For my part, I claim that it is the theory of E&E, with its conception of the given as hypothetical, that does so (see E&E, Chaps. 6 and 8). A defense of this claim requires no appeal to Reliability. So, if I succeed in defending the claim then that provides a reason for accepting Reliability. In the dialectical context, it is the theory of E&E that provides support for Reliability, not the other way around.
These remarks are prompted by fn. 3 in Schafer’s essay.
An account of rational transition imposed by an experience from one view to another may invoke a notion of degree of explanatory coherence. But this notion is not the same as the one needed by Schafer’s empiricist. This notion, unlike Schafer’s, concerns the degree of explanatory coherence of possible changes in a given antecedent view. Here the antecedent view provides a rich context for assessments of explanatory coherence. The notion needed by Schafer’s empiricist, in contrast, concerns the degree of explanatory coherence of entire views. No background view is available here to undergird assessments of explanatory coherence.
For a brief discussion of the limitations, see E&E, Chap. 7.
This essay is a slightly revised version of my contribution to the Author-Meets-Critics session on Empiricism and Experience held in December 2008 at the Eastern Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association. Selim Berker and Karl Schafer were the critics, and David Sosa chaired the session.
References
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Schafer, K. (2009). The rationalism in Anil Gupta’s Empiricism and Experience. Philosophical Studies. doi:10.1007/s11098-009-9436-0.
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Gupta, A. Replies to Selim Berker and Karl Schafer. Philos Stud 152, 41–53 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9434-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9434-2